Cadhinor (and Almean) poetry

[Kuchigakatai]

Hi. There's mentions of Caďinorian poetry of the gods in the page on Caďin religion(s), but not any sample or quick description of what they may involve (only short summaries of the plots of very long poems are given). All samples of actual Caďinor seem to be in prose. Have you had any vague or concrete ideas about what format Caďinor poetry followed?

Say, something comparable to the Old Spanish poet Gonzalo de Berceo's use of 14-syllables per line, separated by a caesura (word ending, and generally the end of a short phrase) after the 7th syllable*, with full "consonantal" rhyme (-ado -ado, -emos -emos...).

Or the Classical Latin hexameter, with five feet each of heavy syllable + either one heavy syllable or two light syllables (always two light syllables on the 5th foot), with a caesura right after the first heavy syllable of the 2nd, 3rd or 4th foot, the final 6th foot being a heavy syllable + one syllable (heavy or light).

* With some detail about the word before a caesura or line ending counting with a syllable less if stressed on the antepenult, or one syllable more if stress on the last syllable:
El prado que vos digo || avié otra bondat
(7 syllables & 6 syllables + 1 extra count = 14 in total)
'The field I tell you about / had another kind gift'

las sombras de los árbores || de temprados savores,
(8 syllables - 1 count less & 7 syllables = 14 in total)
'the shade of the trees / of temperate feel'

I'm mostly just interested in Caďinor, I guess I'm kind of interested in trying to write some for fun, but maybe you've had vague ideas about other conlangs you'd like to share...

[Arkasas]

You probably know about this page, but you may not have seen the following sentence, which appears to be the only known answer to your question.

Caďinor poetry was not divided into sulirulî but into liret 'verses' or 'melodies', divided into a fixed number of beats. As poetry was commonly set to music, metrication paid great attention to the rise and fall of the voice, which was considered to be a matter not only of stress but of vowel length and quality.

As I recall, zompist does not think himself much of a poet, so we may not ever get much more than that... but I too would be interested in the answer, just for fun.

[Kuchigakatai]

I didn't know of that page! The comment on vowel length is interesting considering Caďinor doesn't have phonemic vowel length... Maybe that's just a musical effect. And the bit right after that you didn't quote is very interesting too:

Structures were rigorously defined; a good caďin poem, according to one authority, had "balance, development, the mute, the refrain, the midstanza, and the break"-- sections of specified function and meter.

[zompist]

I would have to think about what all those terms mean.

But yeah, my idea is that Caďinor poetry is based on strict meter, specifically the number of syllables, like the French alexandrin.

Whether this is particularly easy in Caďinor I don't know! You can certainly try it out and see how awkward it is (or isn't).

Caďinor doesn't have long vowels, but it does have heavy and light syllables. A heavy syllable either has a diphthong or ends in a consonant. The ideal would be to have a fixed number of pattern of heavy syllables in a line.

The stuff about "rise and fall of the voice" would be an imitation of Cuêzi, which has a pitch-accent system. As Caďinor does not, I'm not sure what the poets thought they were doing. However, they might have complicated notions of what sort of words best fit a melody; or perhaps they rely heavily on assonance of key syllables.

[Kuchigakatai]

Caďinor doesn't have long vowels, but it does have heavy and light syllables. A heavy syllable either has a diphthong or ends in a consonant. The ideal would be to have a fixed number of pattern of heavy syllables in a line.

I've been wondering, could you specify a bit further what you mean by the last sentence?

Interesting thing about Caďinor is that it has a lot of unstressed potentially heavy syllables... All those infinitives ending in -ec/Vn, conjugations ending in -CVC, and nouns ending in -CVC. All while also often having stressed light syllables. To take two examples from the Textbook:

ZOLBAREȞ BOUNAA TELNEVUT. BOUNAA IM AETANIA PUHAE BANSES.
KIRAN AEFAR MUDRAIS KESUILEA PELEGUT.

Banses, aefar and kesuilea have stressed heavy syllables, but the rest of the stressed syllables are light... (or is bounaa pronounced [ˈbou.na.a] by any chance?)

Maybe writing verse involves not caring about matching stress to the heavy syllables of the patterns? (The ancient Greeks didn't seem to care about matching the accented syllable to the beats of the dactylic hexameter metre... at all)


Also, while we're at it, do rising diphthongs like -ia produce heavy syllables? Is aetania above heavy-light-light or heavy-light-heavy?

[zompist]

Caďinor doesn't have long vowels, but it does have heavy and light syllables. A heavy syllable either has a diphthong or ends in a consonant. The ideal would be to have a fixed number of pattern of heavy syllables in a line.

I've been wondering, could you specify a bit further what you mean by the last sentence?

First I'd better correct an error! I meant "...a fixed number or pattern of heavy syllables".

Let's take a short bit of actual Caďinor so we can see how it goes. (That includes me, I'm refreshing my memory here!)

This is prose not poetry, but it's highly rhetorical, so probably influenced by meter. It groups naturally into short phrases.

Keťulit, / children L L H
ceram pseril / reflect on the shame L H L H
kettos Caďinai naiun / which to the realm of Caďinas H H L L H L H
nunc deforȟae. / was now attached H L H H
Atrabant kaeť tanduit / the empire which our L L H H H H
lihalerint pidorit, / fathers raised L L L H L L H
kahe zonniť / who from the years L L H H
scorui isramperiont / of darkness emerged L H L H L H
esistasce atrabant / the greatest empire L L H L L L H
kaeť ȟupe Ienomain / which under the sun H L L L L H
leileriont cebran, / was ever seen they raised H L H L H
er zahie stupeci stupen / and their oppressors oppressed L L H L L L L H
viocteim Munȟai / the demons of Munkhash H H H H
ctaneriont, / they came L L H
kestevint hurulecit / was overthrown by pirates L L H L L L H
er iduresmeit, / and the greedy L L L H H
Claetura Rugities / the Red Cabal H L L L L H
scustebreca. / murderous L L L L

First, you're right that heavy syllables are common, and in fact they normally end a phrase.

To turn this into poetry, one possible set of rules would be
* ignore stress
* start with H H H H
* any H can be replaced with L L
* an initial V syllable (as in atrabant) can be ignored if the previous word ends in a vowel
* you can sometimes throw in an extra L, but avoid L L L L sequences

I don't have time right now to rework the above passage, but I think it could be done. I like the fact that "viocteim Munȟai" turns out to be very heavy.

As just one possible change, Claetura Rugities (H L L L L H) violates the rules, but Rugities Claetura (L L H H L L) does not.

Banses, aefar and kesuilea have stressed heavy syllables, but the rest of the stressed syllables are light... (or is bounaa pronounced [ˈbou.na.a] by any chance?)

Also, while we're at it, do rising diphthongs like -ia produce heavy syllables? Is aetania above heavy-light-light or heavy-light-heavy?

I've treated diphthongs as heavy, but with the above rules it doesn't much matter as L L (ni-a, na-a) is equivalent to H (nja, naa).